Category: Writing

It’s been a little while since I last did a proper blog post. Rest assured I’ve been writing each and every day. That’s the strange thing with writing. The finished product is literally the tip of the iceberg, floating on the back of years of effort and struggle.

So what’s breaking the surface next for me? Well, I’ve started writing outlines for Death Echo: Vol. 3.

DEv3 will be the final instalment in what has been a massively interesting and educational experience. I’ve made mistakes, and I know now that I am many things, but I am not an editor. How they manage their magic I’ll never know! I’ve also received some wonderful reactions and it feels amazing to have my work out there, being read by real human eyes.

Death Echo: Vol. 3 won’t be out for a while, at least a year. I really want to take my time with it.

In other news my novel, Proper Magic (a comical but sincere fantasy) is nearing completion. I’m so excited about it! I’ll be looking to find an agent and get it traditionally published. As previously stated on this blog I don’t trust Amazon with a novel. Or rather – I don’t trust myself to do the long, hard sell that novels require when it comes to self-publishing.

In that regard I’m perhaps a little too insular. That’s something to work on I suppose.

I’ve found a really good life/writing/relaxing balance. I take my laptop into work now and spend around 40 minutes of my lunch break writing. Then when I come home I’m not on edge about needing to write and I’m able to enjoy time with my fiancé and fur babies. Then on the weekends I do some editing and a big chunk of writing, along with playing computer games (maintaining other hobbies is key to happiness y’all!).

Death Echo: Vol. 2 is now out! Due to issues on Amazon’s end the paperback hasn’t gone live for .co.uk but it can be bought from .com. Good for Americans, bad for brits. Don’t go spending out on American shipping though, it should be available soon!

In the meantime it can be downloaded for Kindle here for a mere £1.99!

I’m super proud of this collection so I hope everyone enjoys it. P.s if you haven’t jumped on the Echo train yet (note to self – ‘Echo Trains’) the first volume is still free for the rest of today so grab a download 🙂

Now I can finally get on with all that other writing I’ve been meaning to do!

Tomorrow (13/1/18) will mark the release of Death Echo: Vol. 2. It contains ten stories, a mixture of fantasy, science fiction, and good old regular fiction. The cover and inside illustrations were all done by Jade Andrews.

Vol. 1 came out back in March 2017 and there was a big build up to it. This release is a quieter affair.

The first volume came in at a modest 16,000 words whereas this one is closer to 26,000 words – still well below the length of a novel – all the stories are a nice manageable length for the most part. It will be going for the same price (eBook £1.99 and paperback £3.99).

In the far future a dying man chooses to take his own life under an alien sky. A young girl sets off to find twin lights she saw fall from a mountain top and in a post-rapture town three survivors are hunting divine prey. The Echo continues.

Memento Mori

Upon receiving awful news a young woman must return to her estranged grandmother, despite every bone in her body telling her to turn tail and run.

Route 20

A man and a boy are on a strange, endless road-trip through the long arid stretches of middle America. What drives them forward? And for that matter what drives the car – the gauge has been on EMPTY for a long time now.

Falling into the Sky

Even in the far future there are illnesses that drive us to extreme measures. Oswen Shaff has lived a long life, but it is not without regrets. Under the sunset of an alien sky he is left alone with his thoughts, and copious amounts of drugs.

Hollow Harvest

Nothing happens on the Hollow family farm, except one night when something DOES happen. Esmeralda is too young and headstrong to understand fear so she goes to investigate. Perhaps tonight she’ll learn how deep the shadows really are…

Grand Leader

Everything is fine in the Holy City of Midden, according to the old Grand Leader. His people are happy and protected and the faith is strong. Admittedly he hasn’t looked outside in a long time, but why would his faithful servants lie to him?

The Last Wedding of Plas Teg

The apocalypse is here. More specifically the apocalypse is gathering around the Plas Teg stately home. Time is running out and the vicar is nowhere to be seen…

Blood for Barthmont

Tael gave up his old life in the treacherous South to protect his new life in Barthmont. Winter is approaching the mountains he patrols and it rarely travels alone. Barthmont is a pretty prize for any daring enough to try and take it.

Immortal

It’s Nold’s job to raise servants into willing cattle for the Immortal Lords of the Forbidden Palace. He enjoys his job. He’s good at his job. So why does it concern him so much that one Lord seems to refuse his offerings? Why does he feel like Lord Ruine is planning something?

Hope Street

Perhaps it was the rapture, perhaps not. All the same the strange creatures that came from the skies on golden wings have got to go. Enter the two man kill-team of Al and Fezz, backed up by young Ben, who is about to learn that his life underground hasn’t really prepared him for the violence of top-side.

Below the Storm

When something nearly wiped out all life on Earth some humans managed to escape to an orbiting station. Generations later they want to take Earth back, but what awaits them under the strange storm that covers the planet?

I’ve had a few problems with the up-loader where certain alterations haven’t stuck. Hopefully this will all be sorted as soon as possible and it shouldn’t affect your enjoyment. Do let me know if the format has been thoroughly messed up though and I’ll do everything I can to make it right!

I’ve learnt a lot more this time around, not just about the obvious (editing and writing) but also about myself. Volume 2 was not an easy road for me. I struggled with motivation a great deal and pushed the release back a few times – Christmas happened slap bang in the middle of it too (the nerve!).

All the same I’m relieved to be at the end of it and see the fruits of all those sleepless nights. I still feel like I’m learning a lot about writing every day and it means the world to me that there are people out there willing and able to join me on this strange little literary trip.

Death Echo: Vol. 2 is ready to be released! It will be available on Amazon in both eBook and paperback. The eBook version is available to pre-order now!

Vol. 2 will go live on the 13th of January 2018!

From the 9th to the 13th Death Echo: Vol. 1 will be free to download so if you missed it the first time feel free to grab it now.

You don’t have to read the first volume to enjoy the second, but there are connections between the two!

I’m very pleased to announce Jade Andrews has returned to provide the cover art and the illustrations! Each story has it’s own image and Jade has really knocked it out of the park – I just hope Amazon doesn’t butcher the image quality!

‘When is it ready?’ is the ultimate question for anyone trying to create something, be it a song, a painting, a sculpture made entirely of bread-sticks, or even a story.

The answer to this is: never. That’s right. Nothing is every finished, but it can be ‘good enough’. Everything you’ve ever absorbed through whatever media has been pushed out because it’s ‘good enough’, not because it’s done in the eyes of the creator.

That sounds really cynical – but let me explain. There are countless writers out there writing and rewriting stories that will never see the light of day. Editing is vital, obviously, but I have to wonder whether in these cases the writer simply doesn’t want to let go of their creation. It’s like being an over protective parent – you have to let your baby grow up and go out into the world. That child has to make mistakes in order to become better – a story has to be exposed to the eyes of strangers in order for the author to learn from it.

Why am I talking about this? Because Death Echo: Vol.1 was an exercise in getting something out there. It was also an exercise in editing, which was helped by the relatively low word count of each story. I couldn’t have gotten through it without all the people who came forward to test-read my work.

Vol.2 is a different beast. Having listened to feedback I wanted to make the stories longer – not massively so, just a little meatier. This has slowed the process down, and getting beta-readers will be vital in order to create the story collection I envision.

The worst thing I could do is release a volume with shoddy stories. I mustn’t let my eagerness result in a bad product, but I also don’t want to sit on my hands and delay!

Essentially when we create something we have three options –

Keep working on it endlessly and never show another living soul (it’s important knowing when to let go!)

Release it too soon and risk a bad response (All confidence and no restraint is generally a bad move – patience is key.)

Work on it to the best of your ability and then have the courage to share it (This one. Do this one.)

It’s a balancing act between all three even at the best of times. I can honestly say that sharing my work has helped a huge amount. To share something is to show courage. To improve upon something is wise. To love the (sometimes painful) process is liberating.

Death Echo is a personal project. I never intended to make money from it (I still don’t) but I knew I wanted full control, something self-publishing facilitates. Three months of nonstop writing and editing, and some beautiful art and I had a product.

It went on sale at the end of March, though it nearly ended up in April due to my own struggles with Amazon’s upload system. The reaction was far better than I expected – I don’t have much of footprint when it comes to social media. Despite that I had over a hundred units moved in a week and a half (downloads and physical copies). I’ve not looked since, this isn’t a number game at the moment.

It was encouraging. Now I had something to talk about, something to sell. It was something I’d written and shaped and sent out there. I had friends, family and strangers all reading a reviewing my work. For the first time since declaring myself a writer I actually FELT like a writer.

It came from a place of desperation and fear but became something rather different. It may be about death but I hope in execution it’s something more uplifting.

I’m a firm believer that the quieter a writer is the more they’re writing. This has certainly been the case with me. These last few months I’ve buried myself in my work in order to reach a pretty extreme deadline. The thought of missing it fills me with dread, but I mustn’t let my desire for progress get in the way of the quality of the final product. All told I have around a month to get things in order.

I’ll make more announcements closer to the deadline, as I’ll have a better idea of what’s happening. In the meantime rest assured that every free moment I have is spent agonizing over the hobby that I so dearly wish to make a career.